The long title of Swedish princes in those days was HRH Prince xxx, Arvfurste (Hereditary Prince) of Sweden, Duke of xxx. There is a precedent for conserving part of this title when forfeiting succession rights. King Oscar II's second son Oscar married a non-royal woman and gave up his succession rights and the titles of HRH, Arvfurste and Duke. However, he kept the title of Prince and was known from then as Prince Oscar Bernadotte, without the HRH.

As for retaining the ducal title after losing the HRH, while there is no actual precedent, there is the court's declaration that Jonas Bergström would share Princess Madeleine's ducal title but not become a prince. Was it seen as a planned act of ennoblement back then? If it was, the king could have convincingly argued that it would not be, given that no dukes have ever been in the nobility of Sweden - only the royal house.

A fourth question is if the King sees the possible eventual removal of Leonore, Nicolas, and Adrienne from the line of succession as extending to their future children. In the case that Leonore were raised in the United States, and later moved to Sweden where she raised her own children, withdrawing royal titles from Leonore would create questions if her children were in the line of succession.

That would be very sensible (I would propose limiting it by proximity to any monarch instead of the current monarch in order that no one is forced to lose their succession rights or titles when there is a change of reign) as it would avoid the delicate situation in some other monarchies with private citizens who are not even princesses or princes theoretically being required to be king/queen if something happened to the royals.

Exactly, in the Netherlands they had to make a special provision for princess Margriet to remain a member of the royal house when Willem-Alexander ascended the throne (this was already anticipated in 2002 and arranged back then) while she was the daughter of a queen and the sister of another queen and dedicated her whole life to royal service. Willem-Alexander's brother, however, will no longer be a member of the royal house when his niece Catharina-Amalia ascends the throne (but will remain in line to the throne; his children - Catharina-Amalia's cousins will loose their succession rights).

My suggestion for the Swedish royal family would be to reduce the official 'royal house' (or king's family) to the monarch, his children and the heir's children; and include any other grandchildren as 'members of the royal family but not the royal house' - keeping their succession rights. I don't see why their children would need to remain part of the royal family. CP's offspring could become counts Bernadotte, so their descendance in male-line of the royal family remains clear. Madeleine's grandchildren (by Nicolas) can revert back to O'Neill.

So, 2nd degree from any monarch or heir (from an approved marriage) would be my proposed requirement to be in line to the throne.

I believe the Court is following a literal reading of the Act of Succession, which says that "princes and princesses of the Royal House are brought up [...] within the Realm". Since Madeleine's children are no longer "princes and princesses of the Royal House", the literal interpretation is that the aforementioned requirement no longer applies to them.

Accordingly, if we keep reading the Act literally, Madeleine's and CP's children (and their respective descendants) will no longer forfeit their succession rights if they marry without the consent of the government granted upon application by the King, or become the sovereign ruler of a foreign country without the consent of the King and the Parliament of Sweden. Again, both provisions in the text apply only to "princes or princesses of the Royal House".

As I said, the reason why the Act of Succession of 1810 laid down several requirements on "princes of the Royal House" (later amended in 1979 to "princes and/or princesses of the Royal House") as opposed to "persons in the line of succession" is probably that, in the legislator's reasoning, those two classes of people were equivalent. In fact, Alexander and Gabriel are the first direct male descendants in male line of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte who ceased to be "princes of the Royal House" (HRHs) without simultaneously forefeiting their succession rights. We are in unchartered territory then.

Strictly speaking, in a literal reading of the Act of Succession, the only possibility now to disqualify Madeleine's or CP's children from inheriting the throne would be if they ceased to profess " the pure evangelical faith, as adopted and explained in the unaltered Confession of Augsburg and in the Resolution of the Uppsala Meeting of the year 1593" as the disqualification based on the aformentioned religious test extends to "Any member of the Royal Family" as opposed to "princes and/or princesses of the Royal House" only.

Thanks! Your explanation finally explains the equivocal comments from the Marshal of the Realm, and as such I believe you are correct regarding the Court's reading of the term "princes and princesses of the Royal House".

I could not agree more with your belief that the Court's reading is contrary to the intentions of the legislature. No doubt there was no premonition in 1810 or 1979 that the line of succession could extend beyond the Royal House. It would be absurd to contend that a private businessperson without any royal responsibilities should be preferred as King or Queen over a princess or prince who has carried out duties on behalf of the monarch for twenty years, when both of them married without the consent of the government.

To be entirely honest, I am persuaded that this new literal reading of the Act of Succession is not motivated by legal conventions or reasoning, but has the purpose of preventing Princess Madeleine's children from dropping out of the succession under circumstances (the apprehension that their stay in America will last indefinitely) which, on the Court's previous reading of the Act of Succession, would remove them from the line of succession. If this is what has happened here, it is not apparent to me why the King is seemingly committed to retaining the children of his youngest child in the succession. The succession is already secure without them, and if they are in fact brought up outside Sweden, they will hardly be qualified to serve as Sweden's head of state.